When you come to a fork in the road, sometimes it`s better to leave in the road, sometimes it`s better to leave it alone.

So, I guess Australians aren`t all bad. The joke goes like this:

Two Aussies, Two Americans, a Scotsman, and a Brit walk into a bar... All the Japanese people leave.

No, it was fun, and we stayed up really late playing ｈｉｇｈ stakes Uno with a very cool Japanese guy from Hiroshima. He put down Gin like it was going out of style, and sung Huey Lewis like it was hip to be square (sorry).

Needless to say, didn`t get much sleep, but it`s all good. I went to Arashiyama today, the western side of Kyoto, home of monkeys (didn`t go to the park) and many more temples. After paying 500 yen (5 bucks) to see a painting of a dragon on the celing, and then paying another 500 yen to enter the grounds right behind it, because they couldn`t tie the package for the temple complex together, I didn`t feel like spending more money to go into temples, which I`ve been doing since I got to Japan. So I walked through the bamboo forest, which was very cool, and decided to hike up a mountain, after seeing a trail going up.

What goes up must come down right? I hiked for a good long while, not sure of where I was going, and finally made it to the top. There was no view, but you could see through the trees the whole of Kyoto and the mountains on the East side. Found a truck path down, and forked off into the woods when I saw a trail that did so.

Or so I thought.

After about 500 feet, the trail kinda dissapears, and I scrambled down at least 30% slope, grabbing trees and things as I went, doing some hardcore scrambling down the mountain. Not exactly what I had planned for the day, but hey, I`m still here to talk about it.

So I get to the ``trailhead,`` a 6 foot stone wall bordering a road near a toll booth, and walk back into town. I walked all day the day before, didn`t get much sleep, so my feet weren`t too happy with me. Had some food, got back to Kyoto to meet with Takashi, the couchsurfing buddy.

He took me to this tea house where they give you the tea and a thermos of boiling water, and show you how to make it. This was the real deal, with high quality tea, and precise methods for brewing. And it tastes like nothing on earth. Bad high quality green tea tastes like grass, and even decent high quality green tea kinda tastes like grass, but this had dimension like you wouldn`t believe. Sweet, slightly bitter, earthy, hint of toasted rice, like a fine wine. Eye-opening.

We then walked around, he translated a bunch of signs for me and explained to me the whole bowing thing (as best he could), and then we went for dinner. The menu was as big as a Tolstoy novel, and we ordered a bunch of things and shared them. Not bad, nothing too amazing, good quality for the money. Afterwards, we met up with another couchsurfing friend of his, and went to Karaoke.

Yes, there is a video of me singing sweet caroline. No, you will never see it.

It was fun, we were all getting into it, except that I didn`t know the words to the Japanese songs. Afterwards, I mentioned I was from Boston, so our second friend explained the existence of a hardcore fan bar, aptly named Fenway Park. After they explained I lived in Boston and was a sashimi cook, I was shown pictures, a signed baseball, given a Sam Adams and a buisness card, asked for an email address, etc. He threw everything he had at me, this guy was so proud of what he was, and with good reason. They flew him over last spring and he got to hand a trophy to Okajima, had amazing seats, basically living the dream. No, he didn`t eat at Uni. ``Fenway Franks only!``

Don`t ask how it got here, but yes, there is a picture of me holding a fake katana and a Fenway Park sign with a samurai wig on, and no, you probably won`t see that either. But if you know someone with a Japanese cell phone, it`s probably traveling the ether as we speak.

Tomorrow, off to Kobe with another couchsurfer. I have nothing but high regard for this websit now. Go figure. This country has the most amazing people in the world. We were talking in the hostel tonight how you could probably leave your bag in the middle of a busy shopping center, and not only would it not be stolen, someone would pick it up and scour the city trying to find you to give it back.